PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS FINALLY OUT OF THE GATES,

UNCLAS BOGOTA 004238 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV CO SUBJECT: PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS FINALLY OUT OF THE GATES, SOME FALL FLAT REF: BOGOTA 3809 -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (SBU) President Uribe remains the prohibitive favorite with a lead of some thirty points as the May 28 election approaches. The opposition campaigns have not caught fire with the electorate and the only "dramas" are whether Uribe will win on the first ballot and whether Polo will push the Liberals into third place. The Polo and Liberal nominees are floundering, and minor party candidates do not even have funds to get their messages out. End Summary. -------------- Quietly Campaigning for Reelection -------------- ¶2. (U) President Uribe's campaign has been in slow burn mode but he recently stepped up his activities as a candidate. As the first incumbent president to seek reelection, Uribe's strategy up to now has been to appear more presidential than candidate. While he has held campaign events about five times a week for the last month, they have been small and outside of "business hours." Similarly he has not appeared in his campaign's television or radio ads. These ads even avoid mentioning his name, using the slogan "Adalante Presidente" (Onward President). Uribe has also declined to appear with other candidates in televised debates. Despite being authorized by electoral authorities, no national, multi-television channel debates are likely. The President held his first big public events on May 5 and 6, giving a speech in front of a large crowd on the Plaza in Ipiales, Narino and addressing students at various Bogota and Medellin universities. -------------- Serpa Plots a New Strategy -------------- ¶3. (U) Liberal Party candidate, Horacio Serpa, has also been surprisingly quiet but has begun to raise his campaign's profile. After attending and speaking at a large May Day event in Bogota, Serpa held a series of walking tours in South Bogota, Cucuta (Norte de Santander department),and several municipalities in Cundinamarca department in order to make personal contact with voters. Despite this recent increase in public events, Serpa's vice-presidential candidate, Luis Marulanda Gomez, told Medellin newspaper El Colombiano that Serpa will not focus on public speaking events, a hallmark of his two previous unsuccessful presidential campaigns, but will concentrate on a nationwide mass media campaign in a final push before the election. -------------- Gaviria Tries to Build Momentum -------------- ¶4. (U) Emboldened by recent polls from Gallup and Semana Magazine that show Carlos Gaviria closing in on Serpa for second place, the Polo candidate has stepped up his schedule, launching a new publicity campaign on May 2. Gaviria has deployed television ads in primetime on the two largest television networks, RCN and Caracol. He has also begun an exhaustive speaking tour, holding events in five departments and nine cities in the last week. Gaviria's focus is that social inequality has persisted under the Uribe administration. Gaviria's strategy is to position himself as the principal voice for the left and for the underprivileged. -------------- Minor Candidates Struggle for Funding -------------- ¶5. (U) The four minor candidates, who failed to meet the threshold for up-front government funding, have struggled to maintain active campaigns. They have been limited by their lack of resources and have been forced to spend much of their time searching for donations. Former Bogota mayor and candidate for the Movimiento Alianza Social Indigina Antanas Mockus has begun to auction off donated artwork to keep his campaign afloat. The website for the Movimiento Comunal y Comunitario de Colombia does not even mention that their candidate, opthamologist Carlos Rincon, is running for president. Neither Enrique Parejo, the former Minister of Justice, nor his party, the Movimiento Reconstruccion Democratica National, have websites. Finally, Alvaro Leyva of the Movimiento de Reconstruction, a former conservative long considered to have ties to FARC, has canceled campaign events citing security concerns. Most notably, he decided not to participate in a CityTV sponsored unofficial debate (reftel). None of these campaigns have been able to generate any momentum and expect to secure less than 5% of the vote combined. WOOD